Red Bank Green

Serving Red Bank and Greater Red Bank, NJ

Get queasy at the very thought of restaurant inspection records? You might want to avoid this report by NJ.com, which looked at the most recent Monmouth County Regional Health Commission violation reports on all 194 Red Bank restaurants and food stores.

The new Immediate Care urgent-care center in Red Bank has all the markings of a healthcare industry play, suggesting teams of doctors pooling their resources to exploit an opening in the era of Obamacare.

But the brains behind the operation is actually a former print-shop owner who’s now on his third career, none of which required studying cadavers or using stethoscopes.

L-R: Mrs. Brister, Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Alter review materials related to Grow NJ Kids, a statewide program that the Rumson School District recently subscribed to.

Press release from Rumson School District

As part of an effort to enhance our Preschool program and offerings, the Rumson School District is pleased to announce a collaboration with the New Jersey Departments of Children and Families, Education, Health, and Human Services.

The district’s vision is to establish a program with two goals: improve our early childhood education practices and develop the highest quality preschool program. To accomplish these goals, Rumson has enrolled in the Grow NJ Kids program, which provides districts with support in enhancing program quality and vision for continuous improvement.

Kitch Organic chef Jennifer Freeman stirs a mixture of ground turkey and vegetables while Liam Splane cuts down a flat of wheat grass. (Photos by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)

By SUSAN ERICSON

In the exquisite, state-of-the-art kitchen at Kitch Organic on Leighton Avenue in Red Bank, the cooks are busy preparing some extraordinary recipes.

All the food here is gluten-free and certified-organic, but that isn’t what makes it exceptional. Health benefits aside, chef Jenny Freeman is producing meals chock-full of flavor — and she’s doing it with home-grown and carefully sourced ingredients.

The 42-year-old chef went to the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York “to learn how to help heal people through food,” she tells PieHole. “I wanted to learn good nutrition and use it in my cooking.” Read More »

A week later than its customary Mother’s Day opening, the Red Bank Farmers’ Market returns Sunday to kick off its 16th run through summer and fall.

Among the returning vendors – but not right away – is the nationally regarded Cinnamon Snail vegan food truck, which recently lost its rights to do curbside business in New York City over permitting issues. The Snail’s return to the farm market was uncertain, but a post on the farm market’s Facebook page says the truck is expected to be back “later this month.”

Pets are no longer allowed at the market, which is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of the Galleria, at West Front Street and Shrewsbury Avenue.(Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna was reported to be “recovering according to expectations” after more than four hours of open-heart surgery Thursday. Michael Anderson, Menna’s legal assistant, tells redbankgreen that “everything went according to plan” in the procedure at Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune, where surgeons replaced a bicuspid aortic valve with a bovine specimen.

Menna is expected to be hospitalized for about four days. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

After ordering the ban a week ago in response to a report of a dog urinating on food for sale, inspectors from the Monmouth County Regional Health Commission #1 this week informed the owners of the Galleria, which hosts the market, that restricting dogs to areas where food is not displayed would be permitted. But the idea was “deemed not to be workable,” MCRHC director Dave Henry tells redbankgreen. So now, let those puppies… sleep in. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

News of the ban came within 24 hours of reports that the health commission warned vendors at the Red Bank Community Block Party on Drs. James Parker Boulevard that they would be shut down if they didn’t comply with agency rules, Mayor Pasquale Menna tells redbankgreen.

In neither case had the borough administration gotten any communication about the actions from the commission, which Menna called “unacceptable behavior.”

Jon Bon Jovi and “his local side band,” the Kings of Suburbia, will perform at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre in a fundraiser for the Parker Family Health Center on July 30, the theater announced Monday. Bon Jovi, a Middletown resident, is a long-time supporter of the clinic, based on Shrewsbury Avenue. Tickets, priced $50 to $500, go on sale at noon Wednesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

They sure looked pretty, but last year’s fireworks showered Mary Ylangan’s yard and others with debris, some of which she brought to a council meeting last week. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Mary Ylangan knows she’s on a quest that, at first blush, may sound a bit like she’s against motherhood and apple pie.

She wants Fair Haven to scrap its annual fireworks show.

But having had her home enveloped in smoke and showered with hot fireworks debris, Ylangan – a mom – is lobbying the town to replace the show with something more environmentally friendly.

Red Bank officials introduced an ordinance amendment this week that will allow food vendors at the Farmers’ Market to obtain yearlong health department licenses for $350, instead of paying $50 per week. A vote on the measure, which Mayor Pasquale Menna said would also reduce paperwork at borough hall, was scheduled for April 23. Here’s the amendment: RB 2014-10

The Farmers’ Market, based in the Galleria parking lot, returns on Mother’s Day, May 11, and runs into mid-November. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

Chef Zeet Peabody shows Red Bank Primary School students around the Monmouth Street garden of the JBJ Soul Kitchen. (Photo by Sarah Klepner. Click to enlarge)

By SARAH KLEPNER

Brandy Balthazar’s third-grade class of English Language Learners at the Red Bank Primary School went on a health-conscious field trip earlier this week.

Wearing pedometers, they visited the stores Rincon and Juanito’s on Shrewsbury Avenue to learn about wholesome food choices, and then headed over to the JBJ Soul Kitchen on Monmouth Street, where chef Zeet Peabody happily showed them around the garden.

The Tuesday morning outing was part of Shaping Red Bank, a public health initiative started two and half years ago that addresses dietary causes of childhood obesity and diabetes through a coalition of local organizations, said Sandra Van Sant, Monmouth Regional Health Commission health officer.

Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long, seen rallying her constituents in November, admits the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy has begun to weigh on her. Social services agencies are beginning to address the emotional and psychological needs of storm victims. (Click to enlarge)

By WIL FULTON

Less than half in jest, Sea Bright’s can-do mayor acknowledged Wednesday night that the emotional and psychological strain of Hurricane Sandy recovery have taken a personal toll.

At a town hall meeting held in part to promote outreach programs to help residents map out their own rebuilding plans, Mayor Dina Long told a packed community center that five months after the storm all but obliterated the borough, the challenge of piecing it all back together sometimes gets to her.

I have to admit I have a new favorite saying thats in direct contrast with my old favorite saying, which was, Do, Long said. My new favorite saying goes something like this: I feel like my head is going to explode! Do you guys feel like that?

More than 150 kids showed up at the Community YMCA in Red Bank Saturday for ‘Kids in the Kitchen,’ a health fair that featured games and activities, including hula-hooping, above, and instruction on how to grow herbs and vegetables, right. The Junior League of Monmouth County participated. (Click to enlarge)

Rumson’s council approved a 2012 budget that calls for a $3 increase to the local property tax for the owner of a home assessed at the borough-average $1 million, the Asbury Park Press reports Wednesday.

The $14.93 million budget approved at a Tuesday afternoon session of the governing body marks a $67,486 decline in overall spending, Press reporter Larry Higgs writes.

Zeet Peabody, executive chef at the new JBJ Soul Kitchen, which features crisp design inside and a vegetable and herb garden out front. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

The star power at Wednesday’s opening of the JBJ Soul Kitchen in Red Bank belonged, of course, to the restaurant’s main sponsor, Jon Bon Jovi.

But while the the telegenic pop star may continue to volunteer his time washing dishes at the Monmouth Street pay-what-you-can eatery, patrons will be on intimate terms with Zeet Peabody, the restaurant’s executive chef.

Along with his kitchen crew and wait staff, he’s the one who’ll be there most of the time. More importantly, he’s be the one who’ll decide what goes onto the plates, and how those dishes will elevate the eatery to destination status.

After all, this is “not a soup kitchen,” Bon Jovi said at the opening. With its knife-sharp appearance, it doesn’t look like one. And the people behind it don’t want it to function as a dole for the down-and-out. The goal, they emphasized, is to make it a restaurant for all, no matter what’s in the customer’s wallet.

So amid the hubbub of the opening, redbankgreen isolated Peabody  who’s been a personal chef and consultant since closing his Bistro Zeeto in Atlantic Highlands a decade ago  for a few minutes to get his input. Here’s our quickie interview.

The ugly spectacle of hecklers shouting down a woman in a wheelchair in Red Bank last week is getting national play.

Last night, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC’s Countdown played a portion of the video Brian Donohue shot for his online Star-Ledger feature, Ledger Live, during the August 26 town hall meeting held by sixth-district Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. at the Red Bank Middle School.

The topic: national health insurance.

“If somebody were to parody the truly ugly behavior at some of these healthcare town halls, it might read like this,” Olbermann says in setting up the video.

With the auditorium inside already packed, a crowd of more than 1,000 people snaked around the front yard of the Red Bank Middle School awaiting its turn inside. Three consecutive seatings were required to accommodate the turnout, with the final session beginning at around 10:30p.

Some came to yell ‘Get a job’ at their congressman. One came to ask him if he was a communist. Another spent $14 on a cab ride from Middletown to declare her own candidacy for his seat, on the platform of “if everybody gave up meat and chicken, people wouldn’t get sick.”

In the aggregate, most of the 1,300 people who swamped Tuesday night’s forum on a proposed federal health insurance plan came to vent their anger over the plan’s expense and expected impact on their continued access to quality medical services.

Through it all, sixth-district Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., a Democrat, stood his ground on the auditorium stage at the Red Bank Middle School, unwavering in his defense of the plan.

“I don’t believe that the majority are opposed to this,” he said, speaking of his own constituents, prompting one of many cascades of boos heard over the course of three seatings.

Attendees pro and con on health insurance reform tried to out-sing each other on ‘God Bless America’ prior to the start of the second session.Read More »

12.09 - Winter Festival with Live Nativity at All Saints Church All Saints Episcopal (the historic Old Stone Church in Navesink) announces their 1st annual ' rain or shine' Winter Festival, with Live Nativity presented in the church's historic carriage sheds. Also featured will be hot cocoa or cider, face painting for the kids, gift vendors (fresh wreaths, homemade baked goods and candy, hand knitted items and more). Free admission; bring a nonperishable food items for local food pantry.

12.13 - Red Bank Board of Education Work Session Open agenda preparation work session meetings, held on the second Tuesday of the month at the Middle School Media Center. Executive Session begins at 7 pm, and the Public Session begins at 7:30 pm. Time: 7:30 pm